SW police praise motorist behaviour over Easter long weekend before another busy public holiday break

Police have praised motorists for being safe on South West roads over a quiet Easter break, as they get up for another busy long weekend ahead. The Easter long weekend break was predicted to be the one of the busiest seasons the South West has experienced for months, being the first public holiday period with open borders for tourism throughout the region. And while many areas of the South West saw an increased number of motorists on the road, police only reported few speeding and drink-driving incidents with no major crashes. Acting Superintendent Martin Voyez said he was overall pleased with the outcome of the weekend with the increase of vehicles on the roads. “Very little happened this weekend, which is a very good thing from our point of view and the communities’ point of view,” he said. “There was a larger than usual number of vehicles on the road this Easter, travelling into the South West, I noticed first-hand while driving with the troops on the roads in and around the district. “We put this down to the unusual combination of the overlap of Easter, and the school holidays, and another long weekend next week.” Acting Supt Voyez was so pleased with the behaviour of drivers this Easter, he even likened motorists to volunteer police officers. “Every road user this Easter has shared the responsibility by driving to the conditions, as if they were volunteer members of the WA Police Force,” he said. “We recognise, always the test of our efficiency is the absence of poor and unsafe road user behaviour, and not the visible evidence of our police actions in dealing with it.” “This year the vast majority of our visitors are behaving themselves and driving to the conditions safely and with care.” Acting Supt Voyez said even breath testing was lower than expected. “Evidence of that is from the almost 10,000 random breath tests we’ve conducted since last Thursday,” he said, “We had only 14 drivers charged with drink driving offences.” However, the South West police force is preparing for another weekend of busy roads with the Anzac long weekend also timing with the Out of the Woods festival in Busselton. Police say they expect it to be another big weekend but hope drivers remain safe and behave on the roads.